Monday, December 31, 2012

I will never forget hearing the eerie music every Friday Night at 10:00 with the start of the Kolchack The Night Stalker Television Show. Since it wasn't a school night I was allowed to stay up late and watch it. Even though I probably fell asleep about a quarter of the way in being I was five years old back then.

Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchack

I found it years later on Netflix and gave it a watch. At first I was like why the hell did I think this was so cool when I was five? But when I stopped being so critical about it for a minute I really liked it.

I could relate to "Carl Kolchack" in the way where he saw allot of cool stuff, but he still had to keep a full time job. And it was funny that no matter how times he got pictures of the creatures and fiends he got the lead on his cameras or any other proof he had (For the scoop of the century) would be destroyed.

And then he would get constant grief from his boss/editor for not working on the assignments given him (Like filling in for a Dear Abby type columnist).

Simon Oakland as Tony Vincenzo

Then I was thinking to myself "Kolchack does the same thing every time..." But then I thought "Dude what do you do every day when you're at work? THE SAME FRIGGING THING AS THE DAY BEFORE, NOW STOP BEING SO CRITICAL AND ENJOY THE MONSTERS!!!"

So I got my mindset back into just watching the show and laughed my head off whenever Tony stuck Kolchack with some kind of horrible assignment, which Carl did everything in his power to avoid.I'm surprised he still had a job half of the time.

Think about it Tony gives him some kind of article or column that he knows Kolchack would not want to do. Then Kolchack runs around chasing monsters or witches then looses all of the evidence along with his trusty camera. And then the dude gets away with writing an article about the adventure without proof that Tony likes and shows up for work the next day.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Well Tom went and took these two and made them into the movie version of a chopper! He stripped them down and made one that opens the throttle and screams down a gore drenched highway!!!

And Tom changed it up a little by adding some Grindhouse flavor with a film filter complete with overexposure, scratches and four screen shots. And named it "The Italian Zombie Movie - The Grindhouse Cut"

Make sure you get andwatch The Italian Zombie Movie Parts one and two first before watching The Grindhouse Cut. The reason being that even though The Grindhouse Cut kicks ass and can stand on it's own, you'll be missing out on the great extras of the full versions.

If you've never seen any of these yet I have to warn you Dan Grams as "Ruggerro" will have you laughing till it hurts. And the Grindhouse Cut DVD has a sneak peek of Thom's newest creature feature House With A Morgue (The Italian Zombie Movie Part 4) as well as extras from The Italian Zombie Movie Parts 1 and 2 like alternate endings and a blooper reel.

A long time ago I'll never forget when I saw the ad for the Halloween Video game and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre video games for the Atari 2600. It was a one page ad in Fangoria and it said "Must be eighteen to purchase" which screamed to me "DUDE YOU SO HAVE TO OWN THESE!!!"

My mother had driven me to Sears to buy both of them with my Summer job money. And when I got them home we were both in for a surprise.

My mother was just as excited to see how they were compared to the movies as I was and what we saw was this...

Then Texas Chainsaw Massacre looked like this.

The first thing my mother said was"You have to be eighteen to play these?" That's when I told her it wasn't much different than my Spiderman or Superman games. So we were both pretty much stumped on why the age restriction on them. But they were fun for what they were back then and I got my moneys worth.

Then came the NES years. The games had better graphics and sound but I have to admit thegame play on some of these titles were rough.

Like Friday The 13th

I was hoping you would get to be Jason like you were able to be Leatherface in the early Atari Game, but like in the Halloween game you're a camp counselor trying to save the campers.

And Jason wasn't alone in this one... You have to fight wolves, bats and zombies as well as find your way around the camp. The maps weren't that great and when fighting Jason you could only dodge him using "Punch Out" stragities and throw rocks at him until you knock him out.

Yeah...

Then when you do beat him by cracking him in the face with a pocket full of rocks you get this ending screen.

Then there was Nightmare on Elm Street

And once again there was no option to be Freddy so instead you were one of four teenagers trying to collect his bones to burn them in the High Schools furnace. The game play was fun (Unless your character fell asleep and the difficulty got harder in the dream world) but it wasn't impossible.

Oh when I was reading up on this one I found out you were supposed to be Freddy to keep the teenagers from burning your bones. But because of the backlash from parents making a stink about the player being Leatherface in The Chainsaw Massacre Atari game they changed it around and gave it some tie in's to the Dream Warriors movie.

And I have to say the graphics were pretty good in this one too!

When Jaws came out I thought "Finally I can really have some fun!"

And it was, but there was no being Bruce in this one either...

You were either the captain of the boat fighting with depth charges

Or a diver fighting Jelly Fish, Rays and smaller sharks.

It was okay but I really wanted to be Bruce.

And the people at Palystation heard me (or I like to think they did).

The graphics were great and I was ecstatic that I was in control of Bruce and setting him loose on an unsuspecting population of annoying tourist!!!

The only complaint I had about this one is they turned Bruce into "Ecco The Dolphin". This Bruce the Great White and the only thing he does is swim, eat and make more baby sharks. But now they had him fighting Ocean Dumpers and other threats to the ocean...

At this point you're saying "Okay so you've played these allot, and I can really read about them on other sites." well this was just a lead in to an idea I had.

What if the video game companies bought the rights to the Horror movies and used the graphics technology they have now? You could have Halloween, Friday The 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre andNightmare on Elm Streetwith Resident Evil and Silent Hill type game play.

If you were playing Halloween it would take place in various locations in Haddonfield where you could play as a guy or girl, Dr. Loomis or Michael.

Friday The 13th would take place at Camp Crystal Lake with the cabins and you could have the choice of playing as a counselor or Jason. Then there could be unlockables where you could be any version of Jason or Pamela Voorhees.

And there would be parts where you have to venture to the lake itself.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre would take place at the gas station, the woods a graveyard and of course the house. With the playable characters being a guy or girl, The Hitcher or ChopTop (Unlockable), Drayton Sawyer or Leatherface with all of his versions as unlockables.

How cool would it be going through the house trying to avoid Bubba and the rest of the family, or playing as Leatherface and going after everybody?

Nightmare on Elm Street would play allot like Silent Hill and the original NES version where the characters and Freddy travel between the awake and dream worlds. And the settings would be the Nancey's house, the boiler room and a few other locations from the movies.The playable characters would be Nancy Thompson, Jesse Walsh, Kristen Parker or Freddy Kruger himself. Then unlockable characters could be the other Dream Warriors characters.

Then I started thinking how theycould go even further and enable network play and you could have just about combo you want. You could have any monster match up you wanted or combine forces to go after the people playing as the heroes.

And if that weren't enough there could be a Cabin in The Woods game where it would play like Heavy Rain. Each character selection and action selection would bring a different ending to the game. And this one could tie into the others and you could have the choice of being just about any monster/slasher ever or be a Containment/Security Team member.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

I love Foreign Horror Movies, now I'm not claiming to remotely be any kind of expert or going on a tirade about how much better they are than American studios releases. I just like to type about what I like.

I'll start it off with "To Sir With Love" also known as "Bloody Reunion" (2006)

All I'll say is a group of students have a class reunion at their old teachers house and it comes to a very bad end.

It's been billed as a full on slasher when it's really not. There's some slasher elements to it, but believe me it is definitely worth the watch if you're a fan of Asian Horrors with plot twist.

Shutter (2004)

A professionalphotographer named "Tun" and hiswife Jane accidentally run down a young girl while driving home at night. They panic and flee the scene leaving her there.

Not long after Tun begins to see a ghostly female figure in allot of the pictures he's taking, and Jane keeps having weird nightmares. They go back to where the the accident happened just to find out nobody ever reported a hit and run.After that Tun learns of the ghost's identity and the ending freaked me out!

Let the right one in (2008)

This has to be one of my all time favorite vampire movies. I'm usually not one for love stories, but this one between Oskar and Eli was so great. There are just so many facets to it that it would be next to impossible for me to type about it without doing a major spoiler article.

If you have seen it you know exactly what I'm talking about, but if you haven't it's definitely required watching for any vampire fan.

The Maid (2005)

One of my all time favorite Asian Ghost Story films yet. A young woman from the Philippines "Rosa Dimmano" is hired by a couple in Singapore "Mr. and Mrs. Teo" to be a housekeeper and caregiver for their challenged adult son"Ah-Soon". She begins her job on the Chinese Holiday of The Seventh Month where it's believed the gates of HELL are opened and the dead are allowed to interact amongst the living for thirty days.Being a foreigner Rosa accidentally disrupts an offering left out for "The Hungry Spirits" and starts seeing allot more ghost than she would ever have wanted too. And it all leads up to a great plot twist and ending.

Dead Snow (2009)

Nazi Zombies haven't been this creepy since the old days in "Shockwaves".

A group of medical students on a ski vacation accidentally find a stash of gold in the cabin their staying in.

And it just so happens that the gold belongs to the just mentioned Nazi Zombies.

There is more than enough blood, creepiness,dark humor and jump scares to keep any horror fan happy. As well as a huge helping of the Ultra Violence.

And I'll wrap this one up with "The Blind Dead Series"

The first is

Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)

The legend isthere were a group of knights called "The Knights Templar" who grew tired of being the good guys and started to get into devil worship instead. This involved them drinking blood and eating flesh to (hopefully) become immortal.

When the higher ups in the church found out about this they had the knights executed and then let ravens eat theeyeballs of the knights so they wouldn't be able to find their way back from hell.

Well the knights were brought back from the dead (by nosy tourist) and it turns out that them not having eyes doesn't affect them much with finding and attacking victims.

The second in the series is

Return of The Evil Dead (1973)

This one is kind of like a retelling like "Evil Dead II"

This time The Knights Templar are attacked by a mob of villagers for doing the same thing as in Tombs, but have their eyes burned out with torches (for the same reason) and then are burned at the steak for witchcraft. And one of the knights swears revenge on the village before he is executed.

Then 500 years later the village idiot has rocks thrown at him by kids there during the anniversary of the execution. He gets mad and uses a girl from the village as a blood sacrifice. This resurrects the knights and they come back for vengeance as promised.

The third is

The Ghost Galleon (1974)

Hey let's put them on a big boat now!!! I had no problem with this idea because I hate boats and being trapped on one in the middle of the ocean surrounded by the undead is enough to keep me watching.

It opens with a photo shoot where two young models pretend to be stranded for the shoot. This is when the Blind Dead's Galleon shows up. And what do super models so when a strange ship appears? Well of course they board it to snoop around, awaken the dead and get eaten like lunch meat.

After this happens the person who sent them out to do the photo shoot does the right thing and sets out to find out what happened himself with his secretary, a hostage and a eccentric scholar in tow.

Yeah it sounds silly, but hey these are creepy zombie type monsters in on a haunted ship and in the water!

And the final in the series is

Night of The Seagulls (1975)

Yeah, you read that right "Night of The Seagulls". And the filmmakers have expected you to have seen Tombs and "Return" to know the Templar's origin. But this time it's a fishing village that's in trouble and the seagulls calls at night are the screams of virgins sacrificed in the years past.

This time a young couple move to a fishing village where the Knights Templar (Now called "The Knights of The Sea")ride into the village every seven years forseven nights to find a virgin to be sacrificed. So the couple along with the help of the village idiot try to save the unlucky virgin from The Blind Dead.

The thing I love about the Blind Dead movies are the monsters. They are just so creepy looking and I love the sound effect they always use with them when they appear. And they are filmed in such eerie locations that you just can't not love them!

And on that note I'm going to get back to my "Must Type" list in The Storage Unit of Terror's office and get some new interviews posted.

In loving memeory of John K. Fitzgerald "Fitz" 1964-1968

WWFD?

In loving memory of James Harris 1980-2017

Doc Terror Forever!

Disclaimer:

All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.In the event that there is still a problem or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentionaland noncommercial and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.